Of Plastic Hearts and Fragile Words
by Lightning-Dono
Summary: [OneShot] It's Valentines Day and Yoh has been gone the whole day, leaving Anna grumpy and very much alone. What was he out doing? [Yoh x Anna]


**Lightning-Dono**: I decided to write something for Valentines Day since I've been inactive for so loooong. xD

**Of Plastic Hearts and Fragile Words  
****By**: Lightning-Dono  
**Status**: One-Shot  
**Pairing**: Yoh x Anna

--

The resonation of Anna's clogs clomping against the ground as she paced down the hall, emphasizing her steps as she reached Yoh's door did nothing to arouse the inhabitants of the Inn. She was a perky teenager who had recently turned fourteen. Anna demanded more from others than she did from herself, although she did admit every now and then that the suffering she forced others through was unreasonable, but it was for a good cause.

At any rate, it was time that Yoh woke up to greet her with his daily, submissive bow and to ready himself for a round of intensive weight training, rounded off by an extent of jogging coached by Anna herself. She thrust her hand towards the handle and pulled the sliding door aside to find the room…empty. And very much devoid of any signs of life. The sheets had been rolled up neatly, along with the mat, which was rather unexpected, seeing as Yoh was the laziest bum Anna had ever had the misfortune to meet.

"He's sucking up to me because it's Valentines Day," she seethed, swinging her thin form out of confines of the room, slamming the door shut behind her. "No Amidamaru, no Manta…" Anna searched the building, opening her mouth once more to complain, but stopped herself. It wasn't often that she got the chance to experience from peace and quiet. You would think that a dead samurai, a learned short guy, and a slack off could be quiet for more than two seconds and survive, but Yoh's bunch was absolutely horrid.

Sometimes Anna wished that she wasn't betrothed to Yoh and bound to marry him, but she saw much potential. She just needed to twist it out with exercises he proclaimed to be torturous acts of cruel nature.

Taking one look at the television and the beanbag neatly propped before it, she went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator to find her cup of bubble tea, went quickly back to the TV and flipped to her favorite drama. The people within it were mindlessly soft and lacked any traces of intensity, but she didn't care. It helped her relax. And so she sat, for hours, long after her bubble tea had been drained from its plastic container and her eyes grew weary from staring at the screen.

Just as her eyelids started to droop, a commercial featuring a man exchanging chocolate with his girlfriend, her brain went on overload.

_When Yoh comes back, I'll kill him._ She thought violently, fingers drumming loudly on the hardwood floor. _No, I'll make him run ten extra miles. _The finality of her decision satisfied her and her thin lips formed an almost evil smile. She turned the TV off as soon as she heard heavy footsteps make their way down the hallway, followed by a round of loud laughter. Getting up and composing herself, she stepped out of the hallway and trapped the trio there as they stared in amazement at her sudden appearance.

"So," she started, her voice cold and unfeeling. "Where were you all morning?" Anna cast a glance at the clock on the wall behind her. "No, scratch that. Where have you been _all day_?"

Yoh smiled warmly. "I was getting something."

She felt like slapping him, but it was Valentines Day, she kept reminding herself. If he had some secret girlfriend out there he had been with all day, so be it. She didn't care about him, she convinced herself. But that wasn't true. If he had been out with another girl behind her back (That that she ever let him go anywhere he wasn't training), Anna probably would've felt more cut up than minced up cilantro. A tingling feeling rose to her cheeks at this thought and she felt tears prick her eyes, but she shook them off.

That wasn't how she was raised. She was taught to be strong, not to fall apart from assumptions her mind made.

It was times like this that she sorely hated her vibrant imagination.

"What's the story then?" She asked impassively, moving towards him as Manta moved behind his friend in order to stop Yoh if he fell. "Been feasting all day? Running errands? Training? _Out with someone_?"

It was after she had listed the last statement that she found it incredibly ridiculous that Yoh would go out with someone with his best friend and his guardian ghost.

"N-No," Yoh stuttered. "I was getting you this." He stuck his hand down his pocket and shuffled his way around the junk that was in there and pulled out a piece of red plastic, adorned with ribbons and glitter and cut into the shape of a heart. From what she could see from what his hand didn't cover as he handed to her, there was a sickly pink safety pin attached to the back. She prayed to God he wouldn't expect her to wear this. It looked like something you would make in kindergarten for your mothers.

"Here."

Anna obediently held out her hand to receive the present and turned it over and, involuntarily, a smile flickered onto her pale visage. A genuine smile, not the forced cruel one she often made.

"This is…" she looked up at him. "Thanks."

Upon the pin as big as her palm, was a wallet-sized picture of Yoh and her together at the last new years celebration they had held back at Yoh's grandfather's home. They were holding hands, Yoh with his usual smile plastered on his tan face and Anna looking downwards as though out of embarrassment.

"But it doesn't say anything." From what Anna could see, there was a merely a ribbon-strewn pin with a picture merged into the plastic by use of a machine and that was it. Not even a "From Yoh". She tried to hide the disappointment from her face, but it was overwhelmingly pathetic in her eyes that he had left no identification, no proof that this was his gift. It wasn't as personalized as she would have liked.

"Look at the side." Yoh's eyes shone deviously.

Anna turned it to the side and she was faced with a well-concealed pair of hinges slathered with red paint. Suddenly pleased, she pried open the hood with little difficulty and in Yoh's sloppy handwriting upon a piece of red construction paper, lay the message:

_Roses are red  
__Violets are blue  
__Valentines is here  
__And I love you_

It was so incredibly childish and simple yet it touched her so much. Beneath the short poem was Yoh's trademark signature – a terribly messy kanji with a little leaf drawn next to it.

Anna looked up and Yoh was surprised to find her eyes glistening with renewed happiness.

"Do you like it?"

She nodded placidly.

"I do."


End file.
